Manama : The Chief of Terrorist Crimes Prosecution stated that the High Criminal Court issued rulings during today’s session in two separate cases involving 11 defendants accused of communicating with the terrorist Iranian Revolutionary Guard organisation with the intent to carry out terrorist and hostile acts against the Kingdom of Bahrain and harm its interests. The court sentenced nine defendants to life imprisonment and the remaining defendants to three years’ imprisonment, in addition to confiscating seized items.
Details of the first case date back to information confirmed through investigations conducted by the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Forensic Science, indicating that the first defendant, a fugitive wanted by security authorities and working for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, recruited the second defendant inside the Kingdom of Bahrain and tasked him with monitoring and capturing images of restricted sites and collecting information about them.
Acting on the first defendant’s instructions, the second defendant rented hotel rooms and apartments, monitored one of the vital facilities, and passed the information gathered to the first defendant.
Investigations also revealed that the third defendant, who worked in exchange, financial transfers, and cryptocurrency and owned an office in the Islamic Republic of Iran, used Iranian and Bahraini bank accounts to conduct financial transfers. He was organisationally linked to the first defendant, who provided him with funds in Iranian toman currency to finance those assignments, which he then transferred to members of the organisation in Bahraini dinars.
The roles of the fourth defendant and fifth defendant involved repeatedly accompanying the second defendant while he carried out the assignments entrusted to him by the first defendant to provide cover and divert suspicion from him, despite their knowledge of the terrorist nature of the surveillance and monitoring assignments.
As for the second case, it dates to information confirmed by investigations conducted by the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Forensic Science indicating that the first fugitive defendant recruited the second defendant inside Bahrain and persuaded him to work for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard organisation in pursuit of its terrorist objectives directed against the Kingdom.
The first defendant tasked the second defendant with monitoring a vital facility and collecting information about it. He was also tasked with identifying and recruiting local individuals inside Bahrain to support the implementation of the terrorist scheme. In execution of those instructions, the second defendant succeeded in recruiting four additional defendants in the same case and assigned them tasks involving the monitoring, surveillance, and capturing images of vital facilities, collecting information about them, and supplying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard with the information with the intent of harming the country’s security and interests.
The Public Prosecution initiated investigations into both cases immediately upon receiving the reports. It interrogated the arrested defendants, assigned technical experts to examine the seized electronic devices, and heard testimony from witnesses, including the investigating officers, who stated that their investigations concluded that the defendants had supplied the Iranian Revolutionary Guard organisation with data and information that constituted a key basis for hostile and terrorist acts targeting a number of vital facilities within the Kingdom, placing the country’s security and stability at risk.
Accordingly, the Public Prosecution ordered the referral of the defendants to the High Criminal Court. The two cases were heard over several sessions during which all legally prescribed guarantees were observed, including the attendance of defence lawyers and enabling them to present their defence, until the court issued today’s ruling.
